Dancing With AI: MIT Students Experiment With Interactive Intelligence - 1

Image by Lorenzo Herrera, from Unsplash

Dancing With AI: MIT Students Experiment With Interactive Intelligence

  • Written by Kiara Fabbri Former Tech News Writer
  • Fact-Checked by Justyn Newman Former Lead Cybersecurity Editor

Students from MIT’s Interaction Intelligence course ( 4.043/4.044 ) presented a series of projects at the 38th annual Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS) conference in December 2024, exploring new ways AI can shape creativity, education, and human interaction.

In a Rush? Here are the Quick Facts!

  • Be the Beat generates music from dance movements using AI and PoseNet.
  • A Mystery for You teaches fact-checking through an AI-powered, cartridge-based game.
  • Memorscope creates AI-generated shared memories from face-to-face interactions.

The conference, one of the most recognized in artificial intelligence and machine learning research, brought together over 16,000 attendees in Vancouver, as reported on MIT’s press release .

Under the guidance of Professor Marcelo Coelho from MIT’s Department of Architecture, the students developed interactive AI-driven projects that examine the evolving role of AI in everyday experiences.

One of the projects, Be the Beat, developed by Ethan Chang and Zhixing Chen, integrates AI into dance by generating music that adapts to a dancer’s movements.

Using PoseNet to analyze motion and a language model to interpret style and tempo, the system shifts the relationship between dance and music, allowing movement to shape sound rather than the other way around. Participants described it as an alternative approach to choreographing and discovering new dance styles.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Be the Beat (@be_thebeat)

Another project, A Mystery for You, by Mrinalini Singha and Haoheng Tang, is an educational game designed to develop fact-checking skills in young learners. The game presents AI-generated news alerts that players must investigate using a tangible cartridge-based interface. By eliminating touchscreen interactions, the design encourages a slower, more deliberate engagement with information, contrasting with the rapid consumption of digital news.

Keunwook Kim ’s Memorscope examines memory and human interaction through AI. The device allows two people to look at each other through opposite ends of a tube-like structure, with AI generating a collective memory based on their shared perspective.

By incorporating models from OpenAI and Midjourney, the system produces evolving interpretations of these interactions, reframing how memories are recorded and experienced.

Narratron, by Xiying (Aria) Bao and Yubo Zhao, introduces AI into traditional storytelling through an interactive projector. The system interprets hand shadows as characters and generates a real-time narrative, combining visual and auditory elements to engage users in an AI-assisted form of shadow play.

Karyn Nakamura’s Perfect Syntax explores AI’s role in video editing and motion analysis. The project uses machine learning to manipulate and reconstruct video fragments, questioning how technology interprets movement and time.

By examining the relationship between computational processes and human perception, the work reflects on the ways AI reshapes visual media.

Together, these projects examine AI’s potential beyond automation, focusing on its role in shaping artistic expression, critical thinking, and shared experiences.

SoftBank To Back AI Robotics Startup Skild AI With $500 Million Investment - 2

Photo by ThisisEngineering on Unsplash

SoftBank To Back AI Robotics Startup Skild AI With $500 Million Investment

  • Written by Andrea Miliani Former Tech News Expert
  • Fact-Checked by Justyn Newman Former Lead Cybersecurity Editor

The Japanese giant SoftBank is in talks to invest $500 million in the robotics company Skild AI in a new funding round. If the deal goes through, the startup’s valuation will reach $4 billion, nearly tripling its value from last year.

In a Rush? Here are the Quick Facts!

  • SoftBank is in talks to invest $500 million in the robotics company Skild AI according to sources familiar with the matter.
  • The American company Skild AI, founded in 2023, raised $300 million last year reaching a $1.5 billion valuation.
  • If the new deal goes through, the startup will reach a $4 billion valuation, and scale up its robots with human-like adaptability business.

According to a Financial Times exclusive , three sources familiar with the matter confirmed SoftBank’s plan to fund the startup, aligning with CEO Masayoshi Son’s ambitions for future technology ventures. However, they warned that the negotiation is still in an early stage.

The new investment will follow last year’s investment when Skild AI—founded in 2023—raised $300 million in Series A funding led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, SoftBank, Jeff Bezos, and Coatue. After last year’s round, SkildAI was valued at $1.5 billion and now, with the new potential deal, could almost triple its valuation.

The American Startup wants to develop its AI robotics technology and build robots with human-like adaptability. According to its website , Skild AI’s mission is to “revolutionize the future of physical work by developing the first truly intelligent embodied system, designed to transform productivity and elevate human potential.” Its long-term goal is to develop artificial general intelligence (AGI) models.

Son has been investing in multiple companies in the AI industry, from data centers to autonomous vehicles and robots to power generation, and in multiple sectors. Softbank is assuming financial responsibility for OpenAI’s $500 billion Stargate Project in the United States and recently invested in the Spanish business travel company TravelPerk .